Ron Smith ignores the 99 percent

Ron Smith often seems to be out of touch with the working man's heartbeat. His latest column ("Is serious social unrest in our future?" Oct. 7) is full of his favorite go-to guys off the bench, statistics, as essentially the sole support for his contentions. The problem with this approach was identified quite astutely by Mark Twain when he noted, there are lies, damn lies, and statistics. Statistics are fine as one component to measure trends as long as we don't deliberately or inadvertently omit other crucial information. In this particular case, failing to mention the tax cuts to millionaires as a major factor for our economic woes seems short-sighted.

Just yesterday, President Barack Obama in his address to the country once again called on Republicans and Democrats alike to do away with this absurd policy that has directly inflicted pain on the 99 percent Mr. Smith dismissively refers to as folks making "meaningless chants." He further refers to the Occupy Wall Street movement that is currently highlighting the corrupt practices that have run our country into the ground as a "creepy thing," which I would assert is out of touch with the vast majority of Americans that are suffering from fraudulent corporate activity. I would add that he is also out of touch with why it is essential in a democracy to dissent.

All around this country in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street there are sister movements springing up as a broad cross-section of Americans have chosen to lend their collective voices in opposition to business as usual on Wall Street as well as in Washington. Occupy Wall Street includes Democrats, Republicans, tea partiers, unions, students, and both the employed and the unemployed. We don't need more coverage from the media on the dysfunctional antics of Congress or President Obama. We need more reporters paying attention to the citizens of our country that are trying in the best way they know to speak out that they are suffering from a system that has essentially abandoned them, as it continues to coddle to corporations and the wealthy.

It is unimportant in my mind that the demonstrators have all the answers to how we turn things around. The important thing is that people are finally in motion and are using their constitutional rights to gather in a peaceful campaign to announce their displeasure.